Ours
by gillyflower34
Summary: Even before the dead rose up and started to eat the living, the only person I remember being able to depend on was my half brother Shawn. Some people use the word half simply to mean that the sibling in question only had one parent in common with them. But to me it always meant that we were two halves of the same whole. Beth/Shawn and Beth/Merle later on
1. Chapter 1

**** For a while I have been toying with the idea of doing a story where Daryl dies instead of Merle. And I was re-reading the Flowers in the Attic series by VC Andrews and thinking about doing a walking dead version of that. So what we have here is a combination of those two ideas, told by Beth as she is reading through all her old journals and turning them into a book. While this is not a crossover, there may be some scenes included that are similar to the VC Andrews books series, so I just wanted to give credit where credit was due. I thought it would be nice to start with a quote from the books that inspired my story. This story is rated M for sexual content, violence and general theme. Shawn Greene is not on the character list so he is listed as OC. Since we dont know much about him from the show, he is pretty much going to be an original character anyway. As always, read, enjoy and review. ****

 _It is so appropriate to color hope yellow, like the sun that we seldom saw. And as I begin to copy from the old memorandum journals that I kept for so long, a title comes as if inspired. Open the Window and Stand in the Sunshine. Yet, I hesitate to name our story that. For I think of us more as flowers in the attic. Paper flowers. Born so brightly colored, and fading duller through all those long, grim, dreary, nightmarish days when we were held prisoners of hope..._

 _V. C. Andrews, Flowers in the Attic_

Prologue

Last night I stood by the firepit outside our humble cabin with my journals in hand. I meant to destroy them. Toss them into the fire and watch as the bindings melted away and the pages curled up and turned black. Burn them and burn away the memories that they held. Destroy the last bit of evidence that might prove my life now is anything other than the perfect fairly tale dream other people on the island believe it to be. I would blot out these words and stories in the hopes that my children might never learn the truth.

But as I stood there, the fire so hot it felt as if the soft blonde hair in my arms might begin to singe at any moment, my father's words from all those years ago drifted back to me. He stood in the doorway of my cell, one of my journals in his hands, rescued from the trash barrel where I had hurled it in a fit of hopelessness. When there was so much death and destruction in the world, I felt guilty and self indulgent spending any of my time writing. I decided there had to be some task more important that I could spend my time doing. Stabbing walkers down at the fences maybe, or sharpening knives. But my father did not agree.

"Some day, people are going to wonder how mankind made it through these dark times. Your journals might serve as a record, for future generations," he said. He brushed a dried spaghetti noddle off the back cover and tried to hand my journal back to me.

"It's stupid to keep a journal," I said, not yet ready to be convinced that what I was doing had any importance. He probably was just afraid that if I tried doing something else, I would get myself hurt or killed. That's all people thought I was good for. Dying. I could read their faces. When they looked at me, all they saw was one more dead girl.

"You think Anne Frank was stupid?," my father asked me. He had a way of asking unanswerable questions. There was a wisdom in his words that I never appreciated until long after he was dead and gone. Knowing that there was no point in arguing, I just snatched my journal back and threw it under my bunk. Next time I got rid of the stupid book I would burn it instead of leaving it in the trash for someone to find.

I could hear my father's words in my mind like it was yesterday instead of so many years ago. His face is harder to picture and more than anything I wish I had a photo of him. My own reflection is of no use in this regard. Like my half brother Shawn, I favor our mother. Fair and blonde with big blue eyes. But his voice I can still hear in my mind, crystal clear as though he was standing right next to me.

I did not burn my books. Instead I took them back inside and lined them up on the small table where I keep my sewing machine. I found my first journal, the one I started writing in before the dead rose up and came after the living. Immediatley, I knew my journals could never be published as they were. They were too raw, too real. And they contained my real name and the names of the people I loved.

Like many great authors before me, I will write this story as a work of fiction. I will hide behind a fake name, and live in fake places that are all still more real in my mind sometimes than the things right in front of my eyes. I will pray to the god that my father never stopped believing in no matter the horror that faced us. I will pray that the people who may read my words might find it in their hearts to forgive me for my sins. I am Beth Greene and this is my story.


	2. Chapter 2

Ours

Chapter 2

 _My mama mapped out_

 _the road that she knows,_

 _Which hands you shake_

 _and which hands you hold..._

 _Sugarland, Already Gone_

Most of my memories from childhood have long since been eclipsed by all that happened after the dead began to rise and eat the living. But I do remember the farm we lived on. My early childhood was good, I had loving parents that doted on me and my siblings. For that I know I should be eternally grateful. Not everyone had such an experience and that made it harder for them to hold on to hope when the world became a less than inviting place to live in.

There were hardly ever any raised voices in my house. My parents didn't fight much, or if they did they must have made a concious effort not to do it in front of me or my siblings. Once I heard them yelling. I'm not sure about what the fight was about, but I do remember my sister Maggie's name being mentioned a few times. I got so scared I crawled under the dining room table and hid, my arms wrapped round my skinny little legs and my hands over my ears. How he knew where to find me, I'll never know, but I was only alone for a few minutes before my brother Shawn was under the table with me. He wrapped one thin arm around me and whispered every dirty word he knew into my ear. Not a very impressive list at the time, but after the first three we were both hysterical with laughter.

My father was a veterinarian. And not just any veterinarian, but a large animal vet that travelled around to all the farms in the county taking care of their animals. My mother didn't work. She stayed at home and took care of our house. And us. After school, I would rush home to help her. Together we would sing while we cleaned the house and made dinner. My mother had the most beautiful singing voice I ever heard. Prettier than any singer on the radio. I told her that one day, thinking that it would make her happy. But it made her sad instead.

She stopped stuffing the chicken we were having for dinner and stared off into space like she was looking at something that no one else could see. That's when she told me. The day she graduated from high school, she packed her bags and left our small farm town. She got on a big silver bus that took her all the way to Nashville. There she planned to follow her dreams and become a singer.

"I spent the money I got as a graduation gift and bought myself a new guitar," she told me, "the one I gave you on your last birthday." I knew the guitar well. She had taught me how to play on that guitar. It was light colored wood with white and yellow flowers painted on the front. By the time I got it, most of the flower design was chipped and rubbed off from use, but it was not hard to picture what it would have looked like brand new, hanging in a store front window.

"What happened momma?," I asked her. My parents never talked about the time before we were born, and in my childish mind, this was the first time I really realized that they had both lived full lives before we came along. Maybe I was not as important to them as I had always believed.

"Nothing," she said, whatever spell that had come over her and made her want to start talking about her past was suddenly broken. She stuffed the rest of the cut lemons into the chicken and rubbed the outside of it with herbs and butter. Lemon chicken, it was my father's favorite and we ate it at least once a week. The next day we would have homemade chicken noodle soup made from the leftovers.

"Did you get any record deals?," I asked, not willing to let the subject go. My mother laughed then, a sad laugh very unlike her normal happy chuckle. Once she washed her hands, she turned and looked at me. She looked at me a long time, like I was a stranger she had never seen before.

"No honey," she said. There was a long pause and then she added, "All I got was your brother, and a broken heart." I remember her so clearly in that moment. Little wild blonde curly hairs had escaped from the tidy bun she tried to keep her hair tied up in and she had a big smear of flour across the front of her apron. Her eyes, the same shade of blue as my own looked back at me as I stared at her in disbelief. That was the day I found out my brother Shawn and I did not have the same father.

Half brother. That was the name my mother had for what Shawn was to me. I know most people would have considered that to mean what she meant, that we only shared one parent in common. But in my mind, it always meant something different. It meant that we were two halves of the same whole. My brother was overprotective and sometimes even annoying, but in all my life I have never found anyone else that understood me the way he does.

The day that was the beginning of the end of life as I knew it started out like any other. Maggie was back from college for a visit and we were at one of Shawn's wrestling matches. She seemed better than she had before she left the last time. Less angry. I knew my Daddy was hoping she would find a nice boy to settle down with while she was away at college. Because Daddy liked to pretend that Maggie didn't sleep around with any boy that breathed her way. I knew better. I spent about 50 percent of my time praying from my sister Maggie and the other half wishing I was her.

The match was going to be over before too long. Most of the wrestlers from both schools were out sick. From that flu that everyone said was going around. Maggie was on her feet before I knew what was happening. Shawn was wrestling a boy from the visiting school and I was cheering for him. But Maggie's attention must have been wandering because she saw our father come into the gym from outside. He had a pair of overalls on, and there was a dark stain that looked like blood smeared across the front of them. His hair, usually so carefully combed into place, was sticking up on one side. I felt Maggie's fingers digging into the tender flesh of my upper arm, pulling me to my feet. The people behind us started yelling for her to sit down, but she ignored them and pulled me towards the steps of the bleachers.

Shawn must have seen us, because suddenly he was losing the match. The other boy pinned him to the ground, but his attention was on me as Maggie pulled me towards the door. The man that was playing referee pounded on the mat, declaring the other boy the winner. They were supposed to wrestle again, for the best two out of three, but Shawn turned his back on the other boy and walked towards us. Towards the door, where my father was standing. His coach and the boy on the other team were yelling at him, but my brother ignored them.

"Is it momma?," he asked my father before Maggie had a chance to speak. My father nodded.

"We need to leave now," Daddy told us. We did not question him, not even Maggie who always questioned him. Instead we followed Daddy quickly out the door, Shawn's bag that had his normal clothes in it forgotten inside the gym. In the backseat of the truck, Momma was lying down. I climbed in carefully, lifting her head and putting it in my lap. She felt hot, unnaturally hot. When I felt her forehead I had the urge to pull my hand back like I had stuck it into boiling water. Shawn and Maggie crowded into the front seat with Daddy.

"She needs to go to the hospital," I said. My father's face turned paler than it already was.

"We can't go there," Daddy said.

"Why not?," Shawn asked. He was turned around in the seat, reaching back to grip Momma's hand. He was still wearing his wrestling uniform, including the helmet that was strapped under his chin, a hung of his wavy blonde hair sticking out the front like the crown on a rooster.

"Because I already tried taking her there," Daddy said. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. I knew that if he let go, his hands would be shaking. Daddy took a deep breath. He looked back at me in the way my parents often did. Like I was too fragile to hear what he was about to say. Like I was still a child. Then he turned back to look out the windshield. Twisting the key to fire the truck up, he got us out of the parking lot and headed for home before he spoke again.

"They are shooting people at the hospital."


	3. Chapter 3

Ours

Chapter 3

 _And so it was that later_

 _As the miller told his tale_

 _That her face at first just ghostly_

 _Turned a whiter shade of pale..._

 _Procol Harum, Whiter Shade of Pale_

It took Momma's fever two days to break. I know now that once that happened she was dead. Her soul had gone on to heaven. Or at least away from this place, which was about the same thing. But Daddy did not believe that she was dead. He said Momma must have some sort of brain damage from the fever. Or that the virus she caught was some advanced strain of rabies that was making her act so strange. Otis and Shawn had to tie her up after she tried to attack me and Daddy.

After that we waited. Waited to see if the rest of us were going to get sick. When we didn't, Daddy said the sickness must be some kind of fluid contact disease. Like AIDS. That made me start to cry. I didn't know much about AIDS, but I knew it was a sickness people got from being sexually promiscuous or using drugs. Momma didn't do things like that. She didn't deserve this.

It was my brother Shawn that pulled the collar of her shirt open and showed it to me. Momma snapped and hissed at him, but he touched her anyway. There was a bandage under her shirt. I had not seen it, so I knew Daddy must have been changing the dressing when I wasn't around. Once I saw the wound I knew why. The wound was horrible. Open and weeping, dark lines where her veins should be snaking away from it. Looking at it made me sick and I had to turn away.

"It's a bite," he told me, "that's how she got infected." He said it so confidently. Shawn was always so sure of himself. Not like me. I questioned almost every thought I ever had.

Shawn buttoned Momma's shirt back up quickly, being careful not to get his fingers too close to her mouth. Then he came around from the other side of the bed and sat down next to me. He put one strong arm around my shoulders and pulled me against his chest in an unusual show of brotherly affection.

"Don't cry," he said, smoothing my hair down with his hands. "They will figure out what this is and then they will make medicine for it. Momma will be fine." It never occured to me to ask who 'they' were. But I did notice that there was a change in his tone from when he had announced how she got infected. Only a person who knew Shawn well would have been able to tell the difference. He wasn't sure about what he was saying now. He didn't really believe that Momma was going to be alright.

"Let's pray on it," I suggested, pulling my head away from his chest and wiping the tears from my eyes. Praying always made me feel more hopeful. And while it wasn't sure to help, I figured it couldn't hurt. When I looked up I saw Shawn's eyes were full of tears, just like mine. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen him cry. Maybe when our old hound dog Chase died. And that had been years ago. He looked so grown up, like he had turned into a man overnight. Sorrow has a way of doing that, aging people beyond their years.

At the suggestion of praying, Shawn hesitated. He looked down at me with his big blue eyes, the color identical to my own. He didn't want to pray. But he must have seen something in my face that changed his mind, because he finally just nodded his head and said, "okay."

Moving around the bed again, Shawn took up his place on the other side of Momma. We joined hands and then each took hold of one of Momma's hands, which were tied to the bedposts to keep her from hurting us or herself. The contact made her moan and hiss louder, but I did my best to ignore her. We closed our eyes and bowed our heads, but I peeked up to get a look at Shawn's face. When I did, my eyes met his and we both smiled. Peeking at each other during family prayers had been a long standing tradition between us. I don't know how it started, but when we were little, Momma used to sit between us to keep us from looking at each other and giggling. I bit at my lip and looked back down, trying to remember the seriousness of the situation.

"Dear Lord...," I started, trying to think of the right words to say, "Bless our family, especially Momma. Please help her to heal and for a cure to be found for her illness as soon as your will allows it. Amen."

"Amen," Shawn repeated. He gave me a reassuring smile. "That was good," he said. I smiled back, already feeling a little better than I had before.

Momma was still hissing at us, snapping her mouth like she was the witch from Hansel and Gretel and we were the children she was waiting to stuff into her over. I was thinking that maybe she was just hungry and we ought to try and feed her again. Then a loud ripping sound sliced through the silence in the room. Momma had pulled her wrist free from one of the bedposts. I felt like I was watching it happen in slow motion. A bloody piece of her skin was still hanging from the belt they had used to restrain her. It caught my attention and I felt powerless to look away.

She reached for me, grabbing at a handful of my hair and pulling it so hard I screamed out. I had been taking voice lessons since I was two. And they had left me with what my brother liked to call one hell of a set of lungs. My shrieks brought everyone in the house running, and even Otis came flying in from outside. Shawn had one hand on Momma's forehead, pushing her back, and he was pushing my head back and away from her snapping teeth with the other. Since her fingers were locked into my hair and she was pulling with inhuman strength, he was fighting a losing battle.

Otis grabbed me, trying to hold onto my hair by the roots and keep most of it from being ripped out. He pulled me out of Momma's grasp and yanked me back, both of us flying down onto the floor and landing in a jumbled pile of limbs. Otis was not a small man, and he landed half on top of me, knocking the wind out of my lungs. As soon as I was free, Shawn let go of Momma and jumped away from her. She pulled the chunk of hair she had managed to yank from my head up to her mouth and started trying to eat it, biting at her own fingers in the process.

When she finished with her snack, she rolled herself off the bed. One wrist was still tied to the bedframe, but that did not stop her from trying to get to me. She pulled so hard it looked like she was going to yank her arm right out of the socket. I could hear the tendons and bones in her arm cracking and twisting. It was the most sickening sound, one I can't even begin to describe. That sound haunts my dreams to this day.

"What happened?," Daddy hollered, appearing suddenly in the doorway. He had a bible in his hand, so I knew he had been upstairs in his room praying.

"She got loose and tried to bite Beth," Shawn said. He dared to get close enough to the bed to hold up the other belt. The one that had a chunk of her bloody skin clinging to it. "Almost ripped her hand clean off to get at her."

"We can't keep her in the house," Otis said, "it's not safe." He had mentioned this a few times when we were still afraid what she had might be airborne and we would all catch it. But he had not pushed the idea. This was Daddy's house.

Instead of objecting, this time my father just nodded. He stared down at his boots, unable to look at the creature that his wife had become. I scrambled to my feet and ran for him. Wrapping my arms around my Daddy, I hugged him tight wishing I could absorb part of his pain with my touch.

"Where do you want to put her?," Daddy asked.

"I think the barn would be best."


	4. Chapter 4

Ours

Chapter 4

 _Do you always trust_

 _your first initial feeling_

 _Special knowledge_

 _holds true_

 _bears believing_

 _I turned around_

 _and the water was closing in all around..._

 _Fleetwood Mac, Crystal_

We waited. We prayed. We watched the tv until there was nothing left on tv to watch. Even the emergency broadcast signal disappeared leaving only tiny white and black dots wrestling each other. The tv stayed that way for two days until Daddy finally shut it off.

More sick people wandered onto our property. Some of them were friends of ours. Of Daddy's. Some were neighbors. And some were people we didn't know. I did as Daddy told me and stayed in the house, far away from them. I ran away and got my brother if I saw one. Shawn and Otis took care of the sick people. They put them in the barn, to keep them from hurting us or themselves.

I heard Maggie and Patricia talking in the kitchen. They climbed up in the hayloft and lowered food and water down to the sick people inside. But the sick folks were not eating or drinking. When I heard this, it made me afraid for my mother. I knew if she didn't drink anything she would get even sicker and die. But the truth was she had already been in the barn for weeks without drinking anything. We should have known then that she was already dead. No one could go that long without water. Looking back I think Maggie knew before the rest of us. She was always the realist of the family.

The peaches were finally starting to get ripe. I went out with Shawn to pick some. I had been cooped up in the house so long, just walking to our orchard felt like a but of an adventure. We took a big basket and Shawn brought along his baseball bat. Just in case. He didn't say in case of what. And I didn't ask.

The ripest peaches were up high, so Shawn knelt down and I climbed onto his shoulders. He spun around a few times, laughing as I squealed to be let down. When he stopped I grabbed for a ripe peach. I thought about smashing it down on the big jerk's head. He deserved it for teasing me and making me dizzy.

The fuzz of the peach was soft against the skin of my hand and I held the fruit up, closing my eyes and smelling how ripe and sweet it was. I decided it would be a shame to waste good fruit. So instead of smashing Shawn with it, I held it to my lips and took a big juicy bite. The peach was riper and softer than I thought and juice squished out of it, dripping down into Shawn's hair.

"Aaah," he cried out, "do you have to be so sloppy up there?" I laughed and took another bite, dripping more juice down on him. On purpose this time. He reached up, grabbing for the peach in my hands and catching me by one of my wrists instead. He lowered my hand to his mouth licking at the juice on it like he was a dog. Then he started pretending he was going to bite me. We were laughing, and I smashed the rest of the peach into his face as I yanked my other hand out of his grasp. I was still on his shoulders, one leg hanging down on either side of his head.

A hand closed around one of my ankles and since we were horsing around, at first I thought it was Shawn grabbing me. But then he started screaming. There was a young girl standing right next to us. I don't know where she came from. But she was sick. Sick and contagious and trying to bite me or Shawn or both of us. I clung to Shawn by the hair, it was the only part of him I had available to cling onto. Later when I was washing my hands, I found strands of his blonde hair caught between my fingers.

The girl was dressed in a blue tshirt with a rainbow on the front. Later, I felt a lot of sympathy for her. Alone and sick in the woods she had wandered out of. Just a little girl. But in the moment, I was able to see her for what she really was. A vicious bloodthirsty monster. Shawn tried to push her back, but she was clinging to my ankle, grabbing at Shawn. She was hissing and moaning. She wanted to eat us, like an evil troll from a fairy tale. Shawn shoved at her one more time, harder. Then he pulled one arm back and slammed his fist into the side of her face.

The girl dropped to the ground, losing her grip on my ankle. Shawn grabbed for me. Reaching his arms up, he caught me by the waist. He lifted me up so easily, like I weighed no more than a small child. Setting me on the ground, he kept me close, moving his body in front of me in case the girl came at us again.

"Run home Beth," he told me. I could hear the fear in his voice as he looked at the girl. She was struggling to get to her feet, her hungry beast eyes on us. The blood that was dripping from her mouth looked so dark it was almost black.

"I won't leave you," I said. I was afraid for him, and for myself. Being close to Shawn felt safe and I clung to the back of his shirt with both of my hands. "Run with me," I insisted.

"I want to lead her back to the barn," he said. I knew he wanted to help her, but there was another element I didn't understand at the time. We were going to have to come back out to the orchard. Many times. He didn't want to leave the girl wandering around. She might surprise us again. And next time we might not be this lucky. Someone might get bit. Get sick. Have to go in the barn with Momma.

Shawn grabbed the bat with one hand and got ahold of me with the other hand. He didn't try to make me go home again, but he kept me close. We walked quickly, stopping every few minutes and making sure the girl was still shuffling after us. Once our house was in sight, I ran inside to get Otis.

Otis told me to stay inside but I followed him back out anyway. I knew how I could help. I ran around the other side of the barn and banged on the wooden panels, yelling and hollering. Distracting the sick people that were already inside so they wouldn't run out while Otis and Shawn shoved the little girl inside. Shawn yelled at me to let me know when they were done. The sick girl was inside. The doors were chained again.

I stopped yelling. When I looked up, I saw my hands were resting on the outside ladder that led up into the hayloft. Only Maggie and Patricia went up there. To feed the people inside. Live chickens. Live animals were the only thing the sick people would eat. I was not allowed in the barn, but I knew Momma was inside. Sick or not she was still my Momma. And I had not seen her in such a long time. I missed her so much it made my stomach hurt.

Hand over hand I started climbing the ladder. I could look at Momma. Talk to her. Maybe sing her a song. She was sick, but I still thought it might bring her some comfort to hear my voice. My feet only got about two rungs off the ground before Shawn grabbed me and pulled me off the ladder.

"Are you crazy?," he asked me, "what in the hell are you doin' Beth?" I turned, all the worry and anger I had been feeling since Momma got sick boiling up inside me. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. They blurred my vision, making it hard for me to see. The tears made me angrier. They made me feel weak, like I was the silly emotional little girl they all treated me like I was. I felt Shawn's hands on my shoulders and I balled up my fists. I shoved him as hard as I could. He barely moved. It was like shoving at a stubborn horse.

"I want to see Momma," I said. I'm sure I yelled a few more things at him, but I'm not sure what. I pounded on his chest with my fists. He caught me, pulling me against his chest and hugging me. I felt his lips against my forehead, then on my hair.

"You don't want to see her," he told me. His voice was thick and it cracked as he spoke. "You don't want to see her... not like this." Shawn started to cry, his tears dripping down and mingling in with mine. I wrapped my arms around him, hugging him back. Then suddenly I was the strong one and he was the one breaking down.

He fell to his knees in front of me. His arms were around me, his strong hands gripping my shirt. He pressed his face into my chest and I held him. I held him tight and stroked his hair. It was still sticky with the juice of the peach I ate while I was sitting on his shoulders. Seeing Shawn cry was so much worse than crying myself. It was almost as bad as seeing Daddy cry after Otis put Momma in the barn. Heartbreaking.

He got control of his tears, taking one more hitching ragged breath, then he looked up at me. His eyes got bloodshot when he cried and his complexion was pale with blotchy red spots. I couldn't see myself, but I knew my eyes and face looked the same. Looking at Shawn was like looking into a broken mirror. I could see pieces of myself there.

I tried to think of what Momma would do. She always knew just what to do or say to take the pain away. I touched Shawn's face, pushing his hair back off his forehead. Leaning down, I meant to kiss him on the cheek. To comfort him. He turned, maybe he was trying to press his face into my palm. Or maybe he was just stretching his neck. Either way I caught him on the mouth instead.

His lips were soft and wet. The sudden contact shocked me and I yanked my head up. The look on my face must have been a funny one, because Shawn started laughing at me. I don't remember bringing my hand up, but my fingers were on my lips. I needed to see if my fingers were going to feel as shocking against my lips as his mouth had. They just felt like fingers. My thoughts immediately went to the same place they always did whenever I thought about boys or kissing.

"Do you think that was a sin?," I asked him. Of course my question just made him laugh harder. Like the buffoon he was. I swatted at him, but he held me close, hugging me close until I was laughing with him. He finally let go and got up, brushing off the knees of his pants. Shawn picked his baseball bat back up and we walked back to the house together. The next day was the day Otis went hunting.


End file.
